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Errata for 2008 Child/Young Adult Release

Errata for 2008 Child/Young Adult Release

The Investigator contains the most recent release of each NLS cohort. Known problems with the current release of the Child-Young Adult are found below. Corrections have been made to items noted in the Errata of prior releases. For further questions, please contact NLS User Services.

Important Notice to Users

Users are cautioned that we have discovered an error in the NLSY urban/rural residence variable. This error affects variables in the following rounds:

NLSY79: rounds 21-22 (2004-2006)

NLSY79 young adult: rounds 21-22 (2004-2006)

The revised NLSY79 urban/rural variables will be released on this errata page as soon as they are created. We suggest that researchers using this variable obtain the revised data before concluding their research.

The error stems from a change in the Census Bureau's definition of an urban area. The 1990 Census criteria used in creating the NLSY urban/rural residence variable used the population of a place to determine the correct classification. People who lived in urbanized areas or places with a population of 2,500 or more were considered urban; everyone else was rural. The 2000 Census criteria changed the method of determining whether a particular point was urban or rural to one that relied on population density within an area. Areas of higher population density are called Urbanized Areas (UA) and Urban Clusters (UC). Residence in either is now considered urban.

From 2003 (the first year the new definition could be implemented), the NLS geocoders used a hybrid approach that considered respondents living in either an Urbanized Area (but NOT an Urban Cluster) or a place with a population of 2,500 or more to be urban. Otherwise the code is rural. A preliminary estimate of the differences between using this hybrid code and the 2000 Census definition indicates that 6% to 7% of respondents may be affected.

In the 1994-2008 NLSY79 Child survey rounds, users are provided with an alternative set of BPI scores based on trichotomous inputs. A set of comparable scores for 1986-1992 is now available. Users will find the data files for 1986-1992, a documentation file containing SAS code to read the data, and a set of frequency distributions for these scores in the following zip file: BPI1986-1992.

3) Corrected Ever Married Flag and Month/Year of First Marriage for Young Adults

The algorithm used to update the NLSY79 Young Adult XRND variables for ever married and month/year of first marriage did not pick up respondents who had been living with a partner at a previous interview whom they had subsequently married by the 2008 interview. These variables have been reconstructed using an updated algorithm that incorporates these missed cases. Users are advised to use the updated variables, which can be downloaded here and merged in. These new variables are contained in the following zip file: ya_1st_marriage.